For Survival
by Dalukes
Summary: Set of drabbles about Owen/Claire. "When she needed him, he was there. But they both knew within minutes of the deed being done she'd go back to hating him again." Miniseries will be included.
1. Survival with Another

**So I saw Jurassic World in theaters yesterday. I had to say, it landed number five on my top ten favorite movies list. It was funny, terrifying, and exhilarating all at the same time. Just as it should be. I did think one of the more interesting character arcs wasn't that of Zak, but of Owen and Claire. More obvious, yes, but it did kind of define the movie. I'm just so high on JW adrenaline right now, so I wrote a Drabble in ten minutes. Let me know if I should continue this.**

* * *

Claire Dearing had never been one for relations. Nor did she enjoy proximity with Owen.

So many things had changed since the second Isla Nublar incident, many for her, including the first thing. She practically couldn't escape her sister and nephews. As for that second thing?

Well, too bad. She enjoyed it now.

It used to be that she hated the sight of him. Broken relationships didn't heal in a day, you know.

It took her three years.

Owen was willing to wait. He almost jumped at the opportunity to work in the park. After she left him in that café in South America, he had spent most of his spare time drunk in random bars. He rarely did anything anymore; the navy dismissed him weeks earlier.

When he got the call from Simon, he had his bags packed in minutes. He wanted to leave the scrungy slime hole he called an apartment anyway.

Soon, he found himself on a plane to Costa Rica and then a ferry to cloud island itself. There had been an outpost set up where the old Baryonyx enclosure had been, taking advantage of the hotel set up nearby.

With his near-empty bags, he waltzed right in to the hotel building and took post around Claire's room.

She didn't know he was there. When she found out, however, it wasn't pretty.

"What are you doing here?" She had hissed at him.

He kept his cool. "Masrani hired me to help with a project of his."

She raised her voice incrementally. "Well I don't want you here. You ruin everything I'm involved with! Can you just leave me alone for a few minutes? Please?"

Her words had stung. Even now, he remembered how her face comforted up, almost willing herself not to break into the happy face she used to have when she saw him.

Now it just made him smile at how things ended up. Then it brought tears to his eyes.

So he had left her alone. When she needed him, he was there. But they both knew within minutes of the deed being done she'd go back to hating him again. So he'd just retreat to his little makeshift home outside the park and mess around with his motorcycle until he needed to work with the raptors or Claire needed him again.

It usually didn't take that long.

But then, after the incident, things changed. She stayed glued to his shoulder seemingly every second. He'd be helping an elderly man and his grandson onto a boat off of the island and she'd be almost drunkenly breathing how much she loved him into his ear.

She made it hard to concentrate.

Barry didn't help at all. He'd just kinda sit back and snicker as she hugged his back, waiting for him to kiss her again.

It was pathetic, he'd say.

She thought it was great. Every night she'd tell him how glad she was that she had him with her, and he'd laugh and say the same.

After all, they had to stick together. For survival.

Right.


	2. Survival with Changes

I'm writing another one. Why not make this a sort of series? Here's the second Drabble. Now the essence of these drabbles for me is that they're shorter than my oneshots.

* * *

Owen sat down on a chair in his new apartment in San Diego. After the incident, Jurassic World had been shut down permanently. He was out of a job.

It didn't phase him.

Sure, they told him he'd never be able to go back again. Blue would never see him again, and he'd never see her.

Something told him she'd be alright.

He had kept in close touch to a lot of the previous workers. Barry lived in an apartment across the street from him. Lowery lived in a suburb outside of town. Everyone else had homes to go to.

Except for Claire.

She had been terribly distraught over the whole ordeal. She didn't want to live alone again, she had said, because she kept having nightmares about the park, the raptors, the Indominus.

Owen offered her to live in the apartment with him, and she did. Sure, having the fridge reorganized every day was a pain, and discussing laundry was never really a discussion.

Now he sat on his chair, watching her sleep on the bed across the room. The TV was on, some stupid show about something or other that Owen didn't care for.

He remembered the day they moved in. Claire had bags upon bags of things she wanted to bring.

Owen had a backpack. He'd just buy everything else.

Of course, she'd fussed over him. The first day she took him shopping and bought him a few new outfits. He didn't really care for most of them, but wore them anyway. At least she tried.

He'd found a job as a warden on some animal reserve. She was a hard-working businesswoman who did her best, and the company showed it.

He wouldn't do much originally. However, he realized how serious and scared Claire still was, so he'd taken her out for a date.

They'd gone to a bar on some south side of town. She'd loosen up a little bit, and finally she'd be having fun, like the days if a few years ago before she took a job at Jurassic World.

She just came out of college then, and she was just like any other college girl.

He'd tried to sleep on the couch the first night. She wasn't having any of that, of course.

The nephews came over for a week that next summer. Their parents dropped them off. Gray was still obviously obsessed with dinosaurs, and he would talk to Owen for hours on end about his favorites and what he'd learned. Zach would be off to the side, enjoying being with his family for once. That didn't stop Claire from teasing him about girls, though.

Owen saw how much Claire had changed just by looking at her treat the two kids. She was much more caring now.

She still exerted her mind that she had no intention of having kids, though.

Owen would laugh.


	3. Survival with Kids part 1: Suprises

**Here's another short drabble! This is going to be part one of a miniseries. Hope you enjoy it!**

* * *

Buying their first house was an unexpected challenge, but one they managed to get through. Owen and Claire's jobs combined didn't produce much money, but after about six months, they had enough to purchase their own home.

Claire had spent hours checking the house out beforehand to see if there were any problems with the interior. Owen had checked the foundation and walls. Neither had found any extreme issues, and so the two bought the house the very next day.

Entering the house when they owned it was a lot different from when they didn't, as Claire soon realized. Every small problem soon became a larger one, like cracks in the tile floor or in the walls. She made sure to point everything out to Owen.

"I'll fix it." He usually said with a focused face, one that seemed to entail thinking about how to fix said problem.

Once Claire had made her rounds, Owen began work on moving in the small amount of furniture items contained in their moving van.

Despite wanting to help, and voicing that need, Claire sat by and watched as the man carried in the few boxes that contained kitchenware and disassembled furniture.

He had set up the bed first, noting its' importance and time of day, without any mishaps.

Claire had been tired that day. She'd spent the last night thinking about the house hours into the morning. So when Owen had finished the bed, she was the first in it.

"Really?" Owen had asked incredulously.

Claire had smiled jokingly and fell asleep immediately, leaving Owen to scratch his head at the woman's antics.

"What am I gonna do with you..?" He murmured as he climbed into the bed.

The next morning was early. Owen woke up to finish reassembling the rest of the furniture, and Claire had got to work on the kitchen appliances and kitchenware. She admitted she had next to no idea on how to fix any machine, but she knew when something was wrong.

About midway through the day, the phone rang. Claire picked it up, checking caller ID and realizing it was Karen.

"Hello?" She asked into the phone.

"Hi!" Karen had returned from the other end of the line. "Hey, I know you just moved in to your new home, but can we ask you a favor?"

"Sure," Claire answered, checking back at Owen who had yelled in anger after hammering his finger, "fire away."

Karen seemed to sigh as she continued. "Well, we needed someone to take care of the boys while we were gone to do... that." Karen continued, acknowledging the divorce.

"Yeah," Claire responded, waiting for Karen to continue.

"We suggested Mom, but they had none of that." Karen noted. Claire shared a laugh, remembering how boring their mother was. It was a prime factor in her being the way she was, she thought.

Karen continued. "They said they'd rather stay with Aunt Claire and.." Karen stopped, almost giggling before continuing, "...Uncle Owen."

Claire flinched, deciding not to say anything about that to Owen if she accepted. "Well, we don't had more than one bed, but Owen is disgruntledly building a couch right now."

"Oh, that's fine!" Karen piped up. "They have sleeping bags."

Claire sighed. "Hold on a minute," she told the phone.

"Owen?" She asked from the kitchen.

"What?" He had yelled back.

"Can we have the kids over?" She asked.

There was a few seconds of silence before the man answered. "For how long?"

Claire returned to the phone. "How long would they be staying?"

"About a week," came the reply.

Owen had overheard, since he had walked in to the room after Claire had asked him the previous question. "That's fine."

Claire smiled. "He says it's fine."

She could have sworn a sigh of relief came from the other side, as well as a few seconds of cheering from a young boy.

"We'll send them over this weekend," Karen said. Claire agreed and hung up after sharing goodbyes.

The two residents of the house stared at the phone for a while. Neither really had anything to say.

Owen was the first to speak up. "I guess we've got two boys on our hands now."

Claire nodded, smiling. He pulled her in to a hug, staying there for a few seconds.

"...it's gonna be like practice for the real deal later."

She punched him after he said that.


	4. Survival with Kids part 2: Popcorn

**Sorry to keep you waiting! Here's part two!**

* * *

It didn't seem that long to either of them until the weekend arrived, sneaking up on them like Delta liked to do to Owen back at the park's raptor paddock.

Claire found herself being excited. She readied herself and the house multiple times, only stopping once her strange obsession became linked to Owen's appearance (and he had asked her politely to stop).

A few previous calls had set up a time for the boys to fly down to San Diego from where they lived in Minnesota. They would then be driven by the two adults into the suburbs, where they'd stay for a week at their house.

As much as Owen didn't show it, he was really excited to see the boys again. He saw them for a day back when he and Claire had still been living in a small apartment.

He viewed these kids as his own nephews already.

The time soon came for them to pick the two kids up from the airport. Owen slid into the drivers side of a towny sedan, Claire following suit to his right. There were no words shared on the entire first leg of that trip; more less than the radio actually being on.

Claire had fallen asleep in the passenger seat. It was early in the morning, as that was when the kids would be arriving, and Claire had been too excited to sleep the night before.

Owen gave her sleeping form a quick glance. Smiling, he thought about the first time he saw her sleeping. It wasn't under good circumstances.

I was on their first date. She'd debated with him for hours about the nutritional value of tequila, outwardly debating afterward whether to have him take her home or not. Long story short, she'd fallen asleep pissed and he'd taken her home.

He didn't have time to think too much into the terrible past as the airport came into view. While taking a few minutes to pull in, Owen becoming agitated at the lack of parking spaces, and Claire nearly dying after tripping in her heels on the sidewalk, they finally walked inside the double doors of the airport.

It didn't take long to find the teenager and little boy. Gray hopped up immediately, sprinting with his bags flopping around on his back to Claire first, almost jumping into her arms.

While Gray was hugging Claire, Zach snuck up on Owen, punching him lightly on the shoulder.

Grinning, Owen turned and hugged the teen in a way he suspected wouldn't be embarrassing. Zach was dressed for San Diego weather, while Gray was obviously dressed for weather back east.

Within seconds Gray had released himself from Claire and launched himself toward Owen, who barely caught him before he was knocked over.

Gray had been talkative the entire ride home.

"Owen?" He'd ask expectantly.

Owen would look back from the mirror to see the young boy. "Yeah buddy?"

He could tell Gray squirmed when called his buddy. "Did you know that the Velociraptor could have had its own complete language like ours?"

Of course he knew that. He worked with the things before. But to please the kid, he'd act oblivious.

"No, Gray," he'd say, "I didn't know that."

He gave a look to Claire, who shared his same look of astonishment.

He looked back at the young boy. "Where'd you learn that?"

Zach beamed proudly. "I went to one of Alan Grant's lectures the other day."

"Wow." Owen said. To be honest, he was impressed that someone as young as Gray would go hear a lecture from a collegiate level professor. Montana State had recently hired him, he heard, but how'd Gray get all the way to Montana? He shook the idea off.

After many questions and trivia facts, Owen drove the sedan into the driveway of the house. Gray flew out of the side door and into the house, leaving Claire stunned.

"How does he have this much energy?" She'd asked Owen as they walked in.

"He gets it from his mom." He said, talking about Karen.

Once inside, the two dropped their bags off. Gray had scoped out the guest bedroom. There were two mattresses on the floor. He took one and laid down, staring at the ceiling happily.

The rest of the day was fairly hectic. Owen would be putting together furniture and Gray would just constantly talk to him about random topics, ranging from raptors to the renaissance.

Owen was nearly dumbfounded by the amount this kid knew. An idea popped into his head. Stopping his work on a recliner, he turned to the young boy.

"You ever just sit down and watch TV?" He asked.

Gray smiled. "Yeah. I do all the time."

Owen grinned. The clock had already told the moon to start its descent. Playfully, he picked up the small boy, who struggled to get out of the ex-navyman's grip as he was dragged to a couch and set down in.

"Claire!" Owen yelled over Gray's laughter. "See if we have any popcorn."

"Popcorn?!" The small boy yelped. "Are we watching a movie?"

Owen turned to Gray with a smile. "Yeah. Which one do you want to see?"

The redhead woman walked into the living room. "Owen? We're watching a movie?"

"We're havin' the nephews over. Why not?" He proceeded to flip on the TV from a remote. Owen stood up to hear what the cross-armed woman wanted to say.

"Because... we've gotta get them to sleep." Claire whispered to him angrily.

"That's the movie's job." Owen explained. "We'll have more time for us."

Claire sighed. She twirled her elongating hair in her fingers before wordlessly retreating to the kitchen to retrieve a bag of popcorn.

Running to the spare room to grab some covers, Owen ran into Zach. The teen was on his iPod, listening to music.

Owen sighed. He tapped the kid on the shoulder and patiently waited for the shut-in guy to open up.

"Yeah?" Zach asked, taking off his earbuds.

"We're watching a movie." Owen said, gesturing to the trio of himself, Claire and Gray.

Zach seemed to internally debate the whole thing for a few seconds. Smiling, he set his iPod down and grabbed a few bedrolls.

Owen grinned and took some as well, retreating to the living room, where Claire had unbelievably set up three bowls of popcorn already.

"One for each of you." She had said, giving a rather large bowl to each kid. One was saved for Owen.

He took it and was about to sit down before she leaned in to his ear and whispered, "That one's for us."

Owen hadn't intended for all four of them to watch the movie, but he smiled at the way it turned out.

He sat down first, followed by Claire tightly on his left and Gray plopping himself on his right. Zach planted himself on the end of the couch.

The lights came off and the silver screen lit up. Owen didn't really care much for the movie.

In fact, when the movie was over and the screen stayed a static blue, he had three sleeping forms covered in bedrolls he cared for immensely around him.

He smiled and tilted his head against a sleeping Claire's. He had a family he cared for.

"I'm never letting go." He said as he too began to fall asleep.


	5. Survival with Kids part 3: Trauma

**Sorry this one seems a but rushed. I've been busy lately, and I won't be able to write for all this next week, so I needed to shove something out there before I left you with nothing. Nevertheless, enjoy and don't be too mean about it. But it's all okay. Because I have LOWERY in this chapter! Yes!**

* * *

Claire wasn't one for proximity.

She had her bubble. If anyone got in that bubble, you could bet your butt she'd go off about it. For a long time.

So when she woke up with Gray and Zach on either side of her, it was an obvious reaction for her to freak out and hyperventilate for a few seconds.

Looking for Owen, she backed up on the couch. He was nowhere to be found. After her breathing calmed down, she slowly tried to raise herself from the couch without waking the two boys.

Her knee hit Zach, and the teen stirred. Terrified, Claire bolted from the room. However, Zach being the stereotypical teenager, he didn't feel any of this as he was fast asleep.

Claire began her search of the still-empty house. Where could that man be?

In reality, Owen Grady was on the porch, receiving a phone call. He hated how the phone repeated the tone seemingly infinitely. He had intended to leave it be, reporters and news companies liked to talk, but he was always willing to keep his mouth shut.

Finally, out of rage, he picked up the phone. "Had to call me on the porch in the morning..."

"Mr. Grady?" A name came through, a question of the identity of who was being called. It was a young man's voice.

Owen sighed. "Who is this?" He barked into the phone.

"I'm hurt." The voice volleyed. "You should remember me."

Owen racked his mind for a few seconds before the name came up in his head. "Lowery, what are you calling me for?"

The man replied eagerly. "Just wanting to see what you were up to. After... You know."

Owen sighed again and rubbed his temples, annoyed. "Probably what everyone else is doing. Surviving."

Lowery knew better than that. He cut right to the chase. "So how long have you and Claire been dating?"

Owen nearly dropped the phone. "How do you know that?"

Lowery stifled a laugh. "How do I know? More like, 'how did you connect the dots?' Let's see. You both moved in with each other after the incident. Okay. Understandable. But now you live with each other. There's gotta be something going on there. Don't think I'm dumb, Owen."

Owen knew Lowery wasn't dumb. How else would he get the job a the control center?

Owen was silent for a few seconds. "And how did you get my number? I hardly know who you are. Did you stalk me?"

"Maybe." Came the reply. "Twitter's the root of all evil. But that's beside the point. Owen, relationships founded on stressful situations are not going to last."

Owen's patience was running low. "Why do you care so much? Why do you have my number?" Soon his tantrum continued with "And how do you think you'll help? I heard you got shot down within seconds."

There was silence. "How about we don't talk about that, okay?" A curt Lowery replied.

Owen grinned. He won.

"I care because Claire is going through a lot right now. I may not be a psychologist, but when I hear that Vivian's going through mental trauma and PTSD at 23, I know that my coworkers are going through that too, and I start to get worried about them. And chances are Claire needs something to cling to right now. So Owen. Lemme ask again. How is she? And how are you?"

Claire was not doing okay. In fact, she was terrified.

"Owen?" She called out, her voice raising. The heads of two boys raised from the couch downstairs, unknown to her. "Owen?"

Her calls began to get more frequent. She didn't need to miss him again. Her dreams had already emphasized that point.

"Owen?!" She was screaming now. Little did Owen or Claire know, but trauma had definitely taken some sort of hold on Claire. While she didn't show it often, she now associated safety with Owen. Now that he was gone, she was terrified. Blurry visions of reptilian marauders seemed to dart in the shadows. She fell to her knees in despair.

"Owen?" It was near a whisper now.

While Gray was not appreciative of waking up, he was perfectly fine with comforting his terrified aunt upstairs. As the little boy hurtled upstairs, an awoken Zach was shaken by her cries.

He breathed out, thinking of what to do. He could comfort her himself, like Gray, but then again-

"Owen?" The older man turned midsentence from talking on the phone to look at the boy talking to him.

Owen's eyes widened in realization as he saw the look of fear on Zach's face. "Did she sound scared?"

He nodded.

"I'll call you back." Owen spoke into the phone before handing it to Zach, who awkwardly greeted Lowery on the other end.

Owen sprinted up the stairs barefoot to meet Claire, hunched over and weeping in the middle of the hallway, Gray sitting next to her crying tears of his own.

Without a word, Owen embraced the crumpled Claire. Gray stood up, standing back.

"It's okay." Owen soothed as the heap calmed down. "It's alright. I'm here now."

Claire sat up, face reddened by tears. "I didn't know where you were." She admitted through gasps for air.

"The boys say you were getting really scared." He told her softly. "Claire. Do I need to set up an appointment?"

"For what?" She asked unknowingly.

"Lowery thinks you have PTSD."

Silence.

In those few seconds of silence Owen saw a whole new fear enter Claire's eyes. He'd seen fear when the Indominus attacked. When the raptors were loose. When people died.

Not this fear.

Then, just as soon as the everlasting silence started, it ended.

"Okay." She answered. "I'll go."

Owen looked up to Gray. The small boy was terrified. He looked close to tears himself. "Is Aunt Claire okay now?"

Owen nodded, and Claire mumbled a confirmation. This seemed to satisfy him, as a rumble in the boy's stomach summoned him downstairs for breakfast.

Owen held her for a few minutes. When she was done, she stood up. Looking off to the side, she saw Zach, with the phone up next to his ear, laughing and chatting away.

"Who's he talking to?" She asked, any hint of petrification or terror completely gone.

Owen smirked. "Lowery."

Giggling, Claire nuzzled her head into the crevice of Owen's shoulder.

"Tell the two to quit. He's gonna raise our phone bill sky-high."


End file.
